Page 39 of Good Vampires Go to Heaven

Zeb was appalled, but she was right. Demons . . . including demon vampires . . . had no morals. And they could be bisexual. Any sexual, really. The more perverted the better. “What else is contributing to the chaos?”

“Patience isn’t making things any better by walking around in those skimpy bikinis,” Regina went on. “She thinks when she gets out of here that she might try her hand at becoming a Victoria’s Secret model. She says it’s all those years as a Puritan, then being stuck in Jasper’s various households without spreading her wings, so to speak.”

She was right. Chaos. “And Grimelda?”

“The scary thing is, I don’t know. She keeps to herself, in that garden of yours. She’s up to something, I suspect. Bottom line is, the blood urge is still in them. Yours is satisfied by my letting you take little sips of mine. And mine is satisfied because I am presumably saving you. I’m afraid the three of them are going to gang bang fang me sometime when I least expect it. And drain me in the process. Then where would we be?”

“In other words, we need to decide something fast. Even if it’s the wrong decision.”

She nodded.

But then, the decision was taken from their hands.

Beau, clearly distraught, came scrambling down off the roof. Luckily, he was in humanoid form, wearing a pair of Zeb’s jeans, and nothing more. If he’d been in demonoid form, he would have probably fallen through the roof.

“Someone, or something, is trying to break the shield,” he said hurriedly. “Offshore. Then from above.” He sucked in a breath. “Doesn’t seem to be a horde. Only one or two.” He bent over at the waist, hands on thighs, and inhaled deeply to calm down.

Zeb grabbed a bamboo fishing pole he’d cut in half to use as a cane, levering himself into a sitting position, then standing. “Get weapons, Beau; they’re under the floorboard in my bedroom closet. And, Regina, call Grimelda inside. Tell Patience to close and lock all the windows and doors.”

They rushed inside. Well, Beau and Regina rushed. He hobbled. And was about to close the sliding doors after him.

“Wait!” Regina said. She went back outside and was standing at the rail, sniffing the air.

“Are you trying to smell my rain again? Bad timing, sweetheart!” he called out to her.

“Don’t be an idiot. It’s vangels.”

“What?”

“It’s vangels trying to enter.”

“Are you sure?”

“As rain. Or dumb men.”

Zeb turned to Beau. “Open the ocean side shield, the number six lever, but only until they enter. Then close it immediately.” He would have gone himself, but Beau could move quicker. “And, Regina, gather the weapons. Just in case.”

Thus it was that, a short time later, Trond and Cnut Sigurdsson came rushing into the bungalow in full VIK mode. Long black cloaks over tight black T-shirts and black jeans and black athletic shoes, carrying swords in one hand and pistols in the other. Trond had his usual military haircut. Cnut still sported the Ragnor Lothbrok look with the sides of his head shaved, and an intricate dark blond braid running from his forehead, across his crown and down to his nape where the tail was caught in a leather thong. Rambo and Thor. Vangel warriors.

Zeb could only imagine how they must appear to Cnut and Trond. Him standing, well, leaning on his broadsword as a cane, having dropped his bamboo cane coming inside. And next to Zeb, a red-haired vangel witch, spread-legged in a military defense mode, knees slightly bent, holding forth a rifle. Beau had an AK-47 at the ready. Patience, in her red-and-white-checked bikini, had a long-handled ladle, the one she’d been using to make fish chowder for lunch. And Grimelda, the aged, cackling crone, carried a garden rake and muttered something that sounded like “Bring it on!”

“Well, well, well,” Trond said with a grin. “What have we here?”

Cnut answered for them, “I smell witch. Must be Zeb and his very own coven.”

“We’re called the Crazy Coven back at Horror,” Beau informed him with a grin.

“That’ll do,” Cnut said.

“By the by, Zeb,” Trond added. “You look like shit. What bulldozer ran you over?”

“Jasper.”

“Ah,” Trond and Cnut said as one.

“Did you know you’re bald now? Was it lice?” Cnut asked. “Not a bad look.”

“You would think that with your hoity-toity Viking hairstyle,” Trond remarked.